Pink Flamingos
Pink Flamingos is a 1972 black comedy cult classic. The film stars the countercultural drag queen Divine as a criminal living under the name of Babs Johnson, "the filthiest person alive". The characters engage in several grotesque, bizarre and explicitly crude situations. Plot The notorious criminal Divine lives under the name of "Babs Johnson" with her mentally ill mother Edie, son Crackers, and traveling companion Cotton. They share a trailer on the outskirts of Phoenix, Maryland, next to a gazing ball and a pair of eponymous plastic pink flamingos. After learning that Divine has been named "the filthiest person alive" by a tabloid paper, jealous rivals Connie and Raymond Marble attempt to usurp her title. The Marbles run a black market baby ring: they kidnap young women, have them impregnated by their manservant, Channing, and sell the babies to lesbian couples. Raymond also earns money by exposing himself to women and stealing their purses when they flee. One of Raymond's would-be targets, a transgender woman who has not completed gender reassignment surgery, thwarts his scheme by exposing her breast, penis and scrotum, causing Raymond to flee in shock. The Marbles enlist a spy, Cookie, to gather information about Divine by dating Crackers. Cookie and Crackers have sex while crushing a live chicken between them as Cotton looks on through a window. Cookie then informs the Marbles about Babs' real identity, her whereabouts, and her family — as well as her upcoming birthday party. The Marbles send a box of human feces to Divine as a birthday present with a card addressing her as "Fatso" and proclaiming themselves "the filthiest people alive". Worried her title has been seized, Divine declares whoever sent the package must die. While the Marbles are gone, Channing dresses in Connie's clothes and imitates his employers' overheard conversations. When the Marbles return home, they are outraged to find Channing mocking them, so they fire him and lock him in a closet. The Marbles arrive at the trailer to spy on Divine's birthday party. Entertainers include a topless woman with a snake act and a contortionist who flexes his prolapsed anus in rhythm to the song "Surfin' Bird". The Egg Man, who delivers eggs to Edie daily, confesses his love for her and proposes marriage. She accepts his proposal and he carts her off in a wheelbarrow. Disgusted by the outrageous party, the Marbles call the police, but this backfires when Divine and her guests ambush the officers, hack up their bodies with the meat cleaver, and eat them. Divine and Crackers head to the Marbles' house, where they lick and rub the furniture, which excites them so much that Divine fellates Crackers. They find Channing and discover two pregnant women held captive in the basement. After Divine and Crackers free the women with a large knife, the women emasculates Channing. The Marbles burn Divine's beloved trailer to the ground. When they return home their furniture — cursed by being licked by Divine and Crackers — "rejects" them by flying up and throwing them to the floor. They also find that Channing has bled to death from his emasculation and the girls have escaped. After finding the remains of their burned-out trailer, Divine and Crackers return to the Marbles' home, kidnap them at gunpoint, and bring them to the arson site. Divine calls the local tabloid media to witness the Marbles' trial and execution. Divine holds a kangaroo court and convicts the bound-and-gagged Marbles of "first-degree stupidity" and "assholism". Cotton and Crackers recommend a sentence of execution, so the Marbles are tied to a tree, coated in tar and feathers, and shot in the head by Divine. Divine, Crackers, and Cotton enthusiastically decide to move to Boise, Idaho, site of a homosexual scandal from 1955 to 1957. Spotting a small dog defecating on the sidewalk, Divine scoops up the feces with her hand and puts them in her mouth. Cast * Divine as Babs Johnson * David Lochary as Raymond Marble * Mink Stole as Connie Marble * Mary Vivian Pearce as Cotton * Danny Mills as Crackers * Edith Massey as Edie * Cookie Mueller as Cookie * Channing Wilroy as Channing * Paul Swift as The Egg Man * Susan Walsh as Suzie * Linda Olgierson as Linda * Pat Moran as Patty Hitler * Steve Yeager as Nat Curzan * Elizabeth Coffey as Chick With a Dick Trivia * In some theatres, patrons were given a "Pink Phlegm-ingo Barf Bag." * During filming, Divine was arrested for stealing. * A chicken actually died while filming the sex scene in the shed between Crackers and Cookie. One of the deleted scenes that was restored in 1997 actually involved cooking the dead chicken for dinner. * At his request, the Singing Asshole is not credited. * John Waters says in part "I was high when I wrote this film. I was NOT high when I made it." * The art department's budget was about $200. Half went to purchasing the trailer, half to decorating it. After running out of money, they would steal things. * David Lochary and Mink Stole designed and colored their own hair for the film. * John Waters has stated that the only scene in the film he regrets is the unsimulated fellatio sequence between Divine and Danny Mills; he claims it was awkward to film because the two actors were friends. * After filming the notorious scene in which he ate dog excrement, Divine immediately washed his teeth using the toothbrush of someone he didn't like. * The house that Connie and Raymond Marble live in was rented by John Waters and Mink Stole. * For the scene in which the Marbles send Babs an obscene package, Divine defecated into the box the night before filming in order to elicit a genuine reaction from the cast. Release & Reception The film had its premiere in late 1972 at the third Annual Baltimore Film Festival, held on the campus of the University of Baltimore, where it sold out tickets for three successive screenings; the film had aroused particular interest among fans of underground cinema following the success of Multiple Maniacs, which had begun to be screened in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The film soon gained a cult following of filmgoers who would repeatedly come to the Elgin Theatre to watch it, a group Barenholtz would characterize as initially composed primarily of "downtown gay people, more of the hipper set", but, after a while Barenholtz noted that this group eventually broadened, with the film becoming popular with "working-class kids from New Jersey who would become a little rowdy," too. Many of these cult cinema fans learned all of the lines in the film, and would recite them at the screenings, a phenomenon which would later become associated with another popular midnight movie of the era, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Despite Waters having released similar films, such as Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs, it was Pink Flamingos that drew international attention. Like other underground films, it fed the rising popularity of midnight movie screenings, at which it generated a dedicated cult following that carried the film for a 95-week run in New York City and ten consecutive years in Los Angeles. For its 25th anniversary, the film was re-released in 1997, featuring commentary by Waters and unused scenes, adding fifteen minutes of material.